CAPITOL HILL SLAYINGS: TIGHTENING SECURITY

CAPITOL HILL SLAYINGS: TIGHTENING SECURITY; Congress's Goal: Guard House Without Locking Out Public

By ALISON MITCHELL

Published: July 26, 1998

WASHINGTON, July 25—
As Congress began to reassess security after the fatal shootings of two police officers, House and Senate leaders vowed today that the majestic, white, domed United States Capitol would stay accessible as ''the People's House.''

Speaker Newt Gingrich, briefly overcome with emotion as he delivered the Republican radio address this morning, called the Capitol the ''keystone of freedom.''

''No terrorist, no deranged person, no act of violence,'' Mr. Gingrich said, ''will block us from preserving our freedom and from keeping this building open to people from all over the world.''

Senator Trent Lott, the majority leader, echoed the sentiment and said the security system had worked, keeping the gunman from getting more than ''a very few steps'' into the Capitol.

In Arkansas where he was campaigning for a Republican Senate candidate, Mr. Lott, a Mississippi Republican, also said he would press to move ahead with a long-stalled proposal to create an underground visitors' center on the East Front plaza of the Capitol.

First proposed in 1991, the center would serve as an orientation point for tourists, but would also move initial security screening by officers and metal detectors farther from the building. The $125 million plan has been stalled by disagreements in Congress over how to paid for it.

For years, and especially after the terrorist bombings of the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City Federal building, lawmakers have debated how to strike a balance between security and public access to the Capitol complex, which attracts as many as 23,000 visitors a day.

After an explosive device blew up in a hallway outside the Senate chamber in November 1983, Congress approved a barrier system of thick concrete planters placed outside the Capitol as a first line of defense against attack.

But Congress has rejected many other security proposals, refusing to close off the Capitol plaza or to erect a wrought-iron fence around the Capitol's 127-acre grounds like the one that encircles the White House.

''Members didn't want the place to look like a prison, frankly,'' said Representative Vic Fazio, a Democrat of California, ''like the White House, where it's impossible to be on the grounds.''

Mr. Clinton, too, asked today that Congress not be barricaded.

''All around the world, that majestic marble building is the symbol of our democracy and the embodiment of our nation,'' he said. ''We must keep it a place where people can freely and proudly walk the halls of their Government.''

At the White House, the adjoining stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue has been closed to traffic and dotted with concrete barricades and planters in response to security concerns raised by the Oklahoma City bombing, in 1995. The street is now used by in-line skaters and roller-hockey players.

For the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue, lawmakers this April approved $20 million for a perimeter security plan: planters and concrete blocks at the Capitol would be replaced with more aesthetic and high-tech security devices.

It was designed to be compatible with the plan to create a subterranean visitors' center, which would steer tourists to enter the Capitol from a block away and to descend to a 446,000-square-foot underground visitors' center where theaters would show films about Congress.

The center would not only create a controlled security zone, it would provide an introduction to Congress. Tourists now are routed through cramped hallways and back stairs.

In the hours after Friday's grim gun battle, many lawmakers simply insisted that the nation's citadel of lawmaking remain accessible.

''We do not want to make the People's House a fortress,'' said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's House delegate.

Chart: ''A Closer Look: Securing a Symbol of Freedom'' Congress has struggled to balance the need for securing the Capitol with a desire to keep it as open to the public as possible. The result is a set of defenses that are unobtrusive, but that protect against attack. HEAVY TRAFFIC BARRIERS -- Placed around the perimeter as a first line of defense against attack after a bomb blew up outside the Senate chamber in 1983. PROPOSED VISITORS' ENTRANCE -- A 1991 plan for a visitors' center under the Capitol would screen tourists away from the main building, but it has long been stalled over cost. LIMITED ENTRANCES -- Visitors are limited to about four entrances. All are outfitted with metal detectors. GUARD STATIONS -- Control vehicle access to the driveway around the Capitol.